The South Australian finance recruitment market has become more balanced, with greater candidate availability than during the tightest periods of the past few years. However, experienced finance talent remains challenging - and increasingly expensive - to secure.

We're seeing more candidates in the market, but employers are often surprised by the salary expectations of the people they actually want to hire, particularly Financial Accountants and Management Accountants.

Our key observations of the SA finance recruitment market

• Salary expectations remain high. This is probably the biggest disconnect we're seeing. Many organisations are surprised by current candidate salary expectations, particularly for experienced Financial and Management Accountants.
• Commercial capability attracts a premium. Employers increasingly want finance professionals who can move beyond producing the numbers.
• Flexibility still matters. Candidates don't necessarily expect to work from home most of the week, but organisations offering little or no flexibility significantly reduce their talent pool.

Finance-related demand also remains resilient

Nationally, vacancies in Financial & Insurance Services increased 14.1% in the August quarter, one of the strongest increases of any industry.

There continues to be significant finance recruitment activity across Adelaide, with current opportunities spanning Financial Accountants, Management Accountants, Finance Business Partners, Finance Managers and Financial Controllers.

What attracts finance candidates?

SEEK Talent Attraction Lab research shows an interesting difference between South Australian candidates generally and Accounting candidates specifically.

SA candidates

1. Work-life balance
2. Salary & compensation
3. Working environment

Accounting candidates

1. Salary & compensation
2. Work-life balance
3. Working environment

For Accounting candidates, base salary is the number-one must-have, while the ability to work from home/remotely features strongly across both work-life balance and working environment.

What we're watching: AI, automation and the changing finance team

AI is already moving beyond experimentation in finance. Deloitte's 2026 Australian CFO research found around 9 in 10 finance functions are now using AI, although most are currently using it to improve existing processes rather than fundamentally redesign the finance function. The most common applications include automated invoice processing (32%), FP&A automation (30%) and automated contract analysis (24%).

We're likely to see increasing demand for finance professionals who combine strong accounting fundamentals with:

• Commercial thinking
• Data literacy
• Systems capability
• AI fluency 
• Critical thinking 
• Communication 
• Stakeholder management 
• Business partnering

This is particularly relevant when recruiting Management Accountants, Finance Business Partners, FP&A/Commercial Analysts and future finance leaders.

AI capability is becoming a talent issue too

Increasingly, candidates may also judge prospective employers on the technology available to them.

For finance employers, investment in AI and modern finance systems may therefore become part of the EVP - particularly when competing for digitally capable, commercially minded finance professionals.

It does raise some important workforce questions for CFOs:

• Which tasks in our finance team will be automated over the next 2–3 years?
• Which roles will change as a result?
• Are we recruiting people with the skills we'll need next — or simply replacing like-for-like?

Read the full report here.

Sources:

SEEK Talent Attraction Lab

Deloitte CFO Sentiment Reports, 2026

Mansfield & Co | South Australian recruitment specialists across Accounting & Finance, HR & People & Culture, Marketing & Communications, Office Support and Executive & Senior Leadership.